Unhappy Thanksgiving?

So here we are, it’s American Thanksgiving and the Flames are out of a playoff spot. So they’re doomed, right? Not entirely, but it’s not a great place to be. Thanks to some legwork from thesportsquotient.com, we can get an accurate measure of the ‘Thanksgiving index’ for the past few years.

Over the last three seasons, a grant total of ten teams not in the mix by this point of the season have made it. That’s 10 of 48, or just under 20 percent. The only real outlier was last year in the East when three teams not in the turkey top 8 were able to turn things around.

Which brings us to the Flames. After last night’s 2-0 win in Columbus, the locals are 2 back of Nashville and three back of Anaheim for the two wild card spots. But as I blogged previously, the problem is the Flames are wpinning through games faster than anyone around them. Nashville holds three in hand on the Flames, and Anaheim two. Dallas is two up with a game in hand. So the point totals look close, but that in itself is a little misleading.

The Flames continue to be frustratingly inconsistent. Awful in Buffalo, triumphant in Columbus. Unless they get on a winning track, and soon, they’ll be just another turkey truism.